About
#NotYourShield is a hashtag created by women and minorities in response against critics claiming that GamerGate was made of misogynistic white men.
Since it was created, it has gathered approximately 622,000 tweets as of February 2015.[1]
Background
On september 3th 2014, an anonymous 4chan user started the #NotYourShield hashtag, responding to a call to organize.[2]
About 15 minutes later, the hashtag was posted on twitter by @Ninouh90.[3]
Notable Developments
On September 4th, Quinn posted a tweet accusing #NotYourShield of beginning a “jamming hashtag” to “spread disinformation,” along with a screenshot from a 4chan post about the hashtag (shown below).
On September 7th, YouTuber Shield Project uploaded a montage of various #NotYourShield members denouncing GamerGate critics (shown below).[4]
On March 5th, Game developper Tim Schafer made a joke about #NotYourShield at the Game Developpers Conference while holding a sockpuppet (shown below).
Criticism
Despite that the people supporting #NotYourShield claim that they use the hashtag in protest of their criticisms of gaming industry corruption being ignored. Some people claim that people of #NotYourShield use their gender as a shield theirselves or “weaponize minorities”.[5][6]
Another common claim is that the people behind #NotYourShield are sockpuppets, eople who act like they are a minority while they aren’t.
Search Interest
External References
[1]topsy – tweets per day: #notyourshield
[2]4chan – 4chan thread
[3]Twitter – first tweet
[6]blip – Dan Olsen about #gamergate and #NotYourShield
[7]Twitter – weaponized minorities